Tags on washed-up turtle might lead to 'conservation gold'

DENNIS — A small adult leatherback turtle that washed up on Mayflower Beach on Friday night previously had been tagged at two different research institutions in Trinidad and Tobago, according to the Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

By HAVEN ORECCHIO-EGRESITZ

capecodtimes.com

By HAVEN ORECCHIO-EGRESITZ

Posted Aug. 24, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By HAVEN ORECCHIO-EGRESITZ

Posted Aug. 24, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

DENNIS — A small adult leatherback turtle that washed up on Mayflower Beach on Friday night previously had been tagged at two different research institutions in Trinidad and Tobago, according to the Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

The sanctuary received the first call about a 700- to 800-pound turtle on the beach in front of 138 Taunton Ave. at around 10 p.m. on Thursday and several more reports came in on Friday morning, the sanctuary's terrapin team field leader Ronald Kielb Jr. said.

The turtle, which was killed when it was struck by a boat, was moderately decomposed and missing its skull, but is believed to be female because male leatherbacks don't come on shore alive and are difficult to tag, sanctuary director Bob Prescott said. This one was tagged once at The Turtle Village Trust and again at the Institute of Marine Affairs.

Kielb contacted both Trinidadian facilities hoping to learn more about it, including if they have record of it nesting.

"This is conservation gold. It's like, 'What are these numbers going to tell me?'" he said about the metal tags. "It will be really interesting to hear back."

Many of the leatherbacks that wash up on the Cape have lost their tags because the animal's flippers are usually the first to decompose, Kielb said.

Leatherbacks nest in the tropics and swim up to the arctic to feed on jellyfish, according to Prescott. The animals are usually spotted for the first time each year off of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard at the end of May and through June on their way up the coast, he said. The researcher believes this turtle may have been on its way back to warmer water when it was struck.

It is unknown how long it was dead before washing ashore, he said.

Leatherback sea turtles are categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a vulnerable species, meaning that the animals are likely to become endangered if the circumstances threatening their survival continue.

Boats are the No. 1 killers of leatherback turtles, but unfortunately, he said, there is not much that can be done to avoid this because larger vessels with inboard motors are so silent the creatures don't know the are coming.

The second biggest threat, however, can be avoided.

Over the years, the sanctuary has seen many turtles die after ingesting plastic, ranging from a plastic bag to sheets of construction-grade plastic.

To the large animals, which are between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds at maturity, the plastic looks gelatinous and is easily mistaken for jellyfish, Prescott said.

"When people are out on boats, they really need to keep everything on board because they can kill a turtle," he said.

Even zip-lock sandwich bags "are not insignificant," he said.

Litter left on the beach also can wash out with the tide and cause problems, he added.

Over the next couple of weeks it is possible that more turtles will be swimming by the Cape and Islands on their way back to the middle of the Atlantic where they spend most of their year.

"They're just swimming around out there, to the east of Bermuda," Prescott said. "If we were ever out there, we'd probably be lost. But they're just going about their business."